“Oh, ’twas here—just here,” said the magistrate.
“Now I’ve noticed, come to think o’t that the wind in the Walk trees makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common; so perhaps ’twas that?” Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs and a cow’s horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
“No, no, no—d’ye think I’m a fool? Constable, come this way. They must have gone into the back street.”
Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey, lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of Comus.
“Now,” said Mr. Grower, “there’s only one thing more we can do. Get ye half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter’s Finger. I’m much mistaken if you don’t find a clue to the perpetrators there.”
The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as they could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety. It was no rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of any sort offering itself to light the way, except an occasional pale radiance through some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door which could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within. At last they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted front-door, after a prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with the importance of their standing.
In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with statuesque quiet of demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the invaders, saying in honest accents, “Good evening, gentlemen; there’s plenty of room. I hope there’s nothing amiss?”
They looked round the room. “Surely,” said Stubberd to one of the men, “I saw you by now in Corn Street—Mr. Grower spoke to ’ee?”
The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. “I’ve been here this last hour, hain’t I, Nance?” he said to the woman who meditatively sipped her ale near him.
“Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and you were here then, as well as all the rest.”